如何应对自动化带来的失业潮？“全民发钱”呼声最高

自动化会导致更多人失业——人们对此日益担忧。据波尔州立大学的一项研究显示，自2000年以来，美国已有约500万个工厂的工作岗位蒸发了，其中绝大多数（88%）都是自动化带来的生产率提升所导致的。

至于如何扭转这种趋势，人们的意见却产生了很大的分歧。

本周，房地产亿万富翁杰夫•格林在佛罗里达州的棕榈滩主持召开了第二次“管理混乱”（Managing the Disruption）大会，本次大会讨论的主题，就是如何应对科技进步催生的下岗潮。去年格林曾表示，机器人和人工智能技术的崛起，不仅会让蓝领工人下岗，也会使很多白领工作步入消亡，助理律师、记者、飞机驾驶员甚至医生等职业都可能会受到影响。这番言论一时引起很大震动。

上周，格林再次在《华盛顿邮报》上撰文谈到了这个话题。他提醒到，自动化对工作岗位的摧毁速度，可能要比新财长史蒂芬•努钦和美国总统特朗普预计得要快得多。上周努钦曾发表过一番颇有争议的言论，称他认为自动化技术给就业带来的重大影响可能还得50到100年才能显现出来。

然而咨询机构普华永道最近发布的一份报告却显示，美国有38%的工作面临在2030年前被机器全面取代的“高风险”。

不过格林在本周三接受《财富》采访时也表示，自动化也并不完全是件坏事，随着自动化技术的进一步完善和普及，它能显著降低中产阶层的生活成本，因此老百姓可能不需要赚很多的钱也能过活。比如使用3D打印机盖房子，可能会将房价拉低到一个更容易接受的水平，很多家庭就不必将大部分收入用来还贷款了。

格林表示，如果3D打印机能用高密度树脂材料“打印”出房子来，那么一套当前造价20万美元的房子，到时可能只需要5万美元就能搞定。这就移除了压在大多数家庭头顶的一座大山。

能源也是普通家庭的一项较大的开销。使用替代能源不失为一种很好的解决方案。如果美国开始使用太阳能给电动汽车充电或是为家庭提供采暖，那么很多家庭也将因此省下一大笔钱。当然，前提条件是这些替代能源的成本要低于石油。

在格林看来，如果自动化技术真的发展到了这一步，那么一对普通的夫妻也就不必每周工作80到90个小时才能付清各种账单了。如果他们靠更少的钱也能生活下去，也就没有必要两个人都出去工作了，夫妻中有一个人就可以在家里带孩子。这反过来也就降低了青少年吸毒和早孕的风险。

不过格林也坦承，他的看法“可能有些乌托邦”。而且他也发现，自动化给各行各业的劳动者都带来了风险。

很多对自动化表示担忧的人也在鼓吹用所谓的“全民基本收入”来弥补自动化对劳动者的冲击。在这一框架下，所有年龄不到加入社保体系的公民都能从联邦政府获得一份最低年收入保障。这个想法近年来在硅谷以及其他一些科技领域都很流行，很多人认为，它不失为抵御自动化带来的就业风险的一种好办法。

只不过这个计划还有一个小问题。在此次大会的发言嘉宾、美国前财长劳伦斯•萨默斯看来，美国政府是无力发放这笔“全民基本收入”的。如果这一计划真的付诸实施，按每个成年人每人发放2.5万美元来算，美国政府每年就要掏出约5万亿美元给全体国民发钱，比当前美国政府的年财政收入还多了4万亿。

据《棕榈湾邮报》报道，萨默斯对该计划的评论是：“这道算术题几乎是无解的。”

还有一些人想到了一些规模稍小但更有策略性的法子，比如提高学生的科技教育水平，对现有劳动者进行重新培训等等。上周，通用电气公司就为波士顿地区的公立学校捐助了5000万美元，用于提高这些学校的科学、技术、工程和数学等学科的教育质量，使学生能够具备这些在通用电气看来目前最急缺的技能。

这个方向无疑是正确的，但要想在全国范围内解决技能缺口的问题，就需要在更大的规模上对劳动者进行再培训。然而在共和党占多数的国会里，提高教育支出似乎并不是什么急务。

还有一些人提出，一些新兴技术或许有助于提高现有劳动者的生产率。以现实增强技术为例，它可以通过眼镜或眼罩，将信息叠加到真实世界上。比如现场维修技工如果使用这种技术，就可以在AR眼镜上随时看到各种图表和指令说明甚至视频，这样他们就不用停下来查找手册了，工作效率也会因此显著提高。目前，弗吉尼亚州赫恩登市的一家名叫Upskill的公司已经开始为通用电气和波音客户提供类似产品了，而这两家公司也为Upskill进行了大量投资。

Upskill公司的执行总裁玛吉德•亚伯拉罕上周在参加通用电气的一次活动时表示：“这项技术能够增强那些不需要太多专业性的员工的技能，并且提高专家员工的工作效率。”

再回到这次大会上来：格林表示，大会的多数发言者的乐观态度让他感到很惊讶——与会者还包括前英国首相卡梅伦、《纽约时报》专栏作家托马斯•弗里德曼等知名人士。格林表示：“如果我也很乐观的话，我就不会花这么多时间和精力在这次大会上了。”

在说到19世纪的工业革命与当前的形势有哪些区别时，格林指出，工业革命爆发后，虽然机器的力量取代了人力，但围绕着产出的各种工业产品，也催出了一批诸如零售、记账、机器维修和会计之类的工作。然而如今，机器人不仅正在取代体力劳动者，人工智能也在取代脑力劳动者。

格林最后表示：“我们无法同时与物理机器和思想机器竞争。”（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

Fears that automation will kill more jobs continues to grow. An estimated 5 million U.S. factory jobs have evaporated since 2000 and most of those (88%) were lost to increased productivity due to automation, according to a study by Ball State University.

But opinions about what, if anything, can be done to reverse the trend differ greatly.

Real estate billionaire Jeff Greene, who hosted his second Managing the Disruption conference on the topic of job destruction and what to do about it in Palm Beach, Fla., this week, has some ideas. Last year, he raised a ruckus by saying that robotics and artificial intelligence would kill not just blue-collar factory jobs but also many white-collar careers. Paralegals, journalists, airline pilots, even surgeons could be impacted, for example.

Greene continued the drumbeat last week in a Washington Post article, warning that automation will kill jobs much faster than Steven Mnuchin, President Donald Trump's Treasury secretary, expects. Last week Mnuchin said, controversially, that he didn't think major automation-related job losses would kick in for another 50 to 100 years.

In contrast, a recent report by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that 38% of U.S. jobs have a "high risk" of being wiped out by automation by 2030.

Greene's take is that automation isn't entirely bad if it can be perfected and deployed to lower the cost of living for the middle class so that they wouldn't need to earn as much money to get by. For example, using 3-D printers to build homes could cut the cost of housing to a more manageable level so that families wouldn't have to devote most of their income to mortgage payments, Greene told Fortune on Wednesday.

If machines could 3-D print homes using high-density resins, a structure that now costs $200,000 might cost $50,000, Greene said. That would take a big chunk of debt off the table for most families, he said.

Another huge drain on family budgets is energy. Part of that problem could be solved by using alternative energy. Families could save money if the U.S. used solar energy to power electric cars and heat homes. Of course that assumes that the cost of alternatives goes lower than the cost of oil.

The net impact, in his opinion, is that a couple would no longer have to work 80 to 90 hours a week to pay the bills. And if they can live on less money, the need for a two-income household is lessened, allowing one parent to stay home with any children. That, in turn, reduces the risk of children turning to drugs or getting pregnant.

Greene acknowledges that his ideas are "possibly Utopian" in that he's seeing the use of automation that poses risks to workers across the spectrum in the best possible light.

Many who worry about automation also tout universal basic income as a way to make up for lost jobs. In this scenario, all citizens who are too young for Social Security would receive a flat annual payment from the federal government. It's a trendy idea in Silicon Valley and other tech enclaves, where it's seen as a way to hedge against automation-induced job losses.

One small problem: It is unaffordable, according to former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who spoke at this week's event. It would cost about $5 trillion annually, or about $4 trillion more than the country's annual income tax revenue, to pay each American adult $25,000 a year.

"It's almost impossible to make the arithmetic work," Summers said, according to The Palm Beach Post.

Others see hope in smaller, more tactical steps, like improving tech education for students and re-training current workers. Last week, General Electric contributed $50 million to the Boston Public Schools to improve science technology engineering and math (STEM) education to train students to help fill what the company sees as a gaping skills gap.

That's a step in the right direction, but retraining people on a much broader scale is needed to address skills gap nation-wide. There does not seem to be much desire in the Republican-controlled Congress to boost funding on education.

Others say technologies like augmented reality, which layers information onto the real world through connected eye glasses or goggles, could help. For example, field repair technicians could get diagrams and instructions, even video, projected into their goggles so that they can work faster and better without having to stop to consult manuals. That's technology that Upskill, a Herndon, Va.-based tech company, already provides to customers like GE (ge, -0.17%) and Boeing (ba, -0.91%), which just invested in the company.

"This technology can augment the skills of less specialized workers and help expert workers work faster," Upskill executive chairman Dr. Magid Abraham told Fortune at a GE event last week.

But back to the conference: Greene says he was struck about how optimistic most of the speakers were—the roster also included former British Prime Minister David Cameron and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. "If I were optimistic, I wouldn't spend all this time and energy on this conference," he said.

The difference between the industrial revolution of the 19th century and the current situation, he said, is that back then machines replaced physical labor but also created many retail, bookkeeping, machine repair, and accounting jobs related to the goods produced. Now, however, the world is dealing not only with robots that do physical labor but with AI that does mental labor as well.

Says Greene: "We can't compete with both physical machines and thinking machines."